Drummers and other percussionists often need to readily store and retrieve drum sticks. There is often little time in which to change sticks when a drummer is playing. As such, having quick and easy access to the right stick at the right time has a profound effect on a drummer's performance and creative control.
There are different types of drum stick holders currently available, however these drum stick holder designs are inefficient and awkward to use. Most designs focus on using a tube, suspended bag, or pouch-style apparatus. With these designs, a stick must be removed by drawing it out in a consistent primarily upward motion, much like taking a sword from a scabbard. This motion is counter to the natural motions that are used during drum kit playing. Further, these designs do not allow direct and ready access to the sticks by the drummer which is needed for quick transitions.
Many existing drum stick holders use tubes (of metal, plastic, PVC, or cloth) to hold the drum sticks. This design only allows for lengthwise insertion and removal of the drum sticks and makes only one end of the drum stick accessible. Drum sticks also tend to clump together, which can make selection during musical performance difficult, slow, and error prone. In addition, normal playing vibrations cause drum sticks to move around in the holder, which not only makes selection difficult and noisy, but can also cause damage to the sticks and unwanted rattling noise during playing.
Most existing drum stick holders rely solely on gravity to hold sticks in place. In these designs, sticks fall out easily. In addition, they are limited in their placement on or about the drum kit—for practical use, the holder must be below drummer's mid-line. One must also take care not to tilt the holder too far past vertical or the sticks will fall out.
The currently available drum stick holders also suffer from the drawback of being unable to be attached to different multiple points on the drum set. Most existing drum stick holder designs are attached to the drum kit by a clamp that only fits in one type of place and is pre-set to that application only (e.g. tubular stands for drum arrangement, cymbal stands, floor tom legs, or tensioning rod). Thus, a user is unable to position the drum stick holder anywhere else and, in many cases, a user's ideal position is not possible. If additional mounting methods are possible, they usually require additional tools.
As stated above, most existing drum stick holders are limited to attaching one of two broad categories of attachment location/method: either to the generally tubular components of drum and cymbal stands, or to the tensioning rods, which are located around the perimeter of a drum hoop (or rim). However, the user cannot switch between methods. The tensioning rod attachment design used by the currently available drum stick holders requires that a user completely unscrew and pull out, then, insert and re-screw two tensioning rods (first from the original location, then from the new location) to move the drum stick holder to a new location, even if it's on the same drum. The currently available drum stick holders suffer from the drawback that when they are attached to the tensioning rod, the drum(s) then have to be re-tuned. Additionally, this design also acts as a lever between the tensioning rod and the drum hoop which causes undesirable loosening of the drum head under normal playing conditions, thus changing the tone and timbre of a drum due to pressure and vibrations transmitting directly to the hoop and tensioning rod. This loosening or de-tuning, in turn, shortens the lifespan of drum heads, which are costly to replace. De-tuning can also be caused by sticks being added or removed due to changes in weight on the holder which are transmitted directly to the tensioning/tuning rod and hoop via leverage force.
The drum stick holder of the present invention solves the problems associated with the currently available types of drum stick holders and provides drummers new ways to be creative with stick types and make fast changeovers. The present invention presents an improved drum stick holder having a sturdy and durable adjustable attachment system which is capable of holding different sized drum sticks in any position allowing for the fast and easy insertion and removal of drumsticks. The present invention greatly increases diversity in mounting location choices. The design of the present invention manages impact and vibration from the insertion and removal of drum sticks. The easy repositioning of the drum stick holder to any location allows the lifespan of the drum heads to be maintained.